New Yorker or Misanthrope

As I was walking to work this morning, we were getting a pretty soaking rainstorm. And I was really taken aback by two things: First, I was a bit amazed how aware I was of how angry all the other people on the street were making me. I'm either becoming a real New Yorker (meaning my disdain for everyone else is genial) or a real misanthrope (in the sense that my dislike of others is pathological), I can't decide which.

The other thing I noticed was just how much I was enjoying the morning. Despite the fact that the rain was coming down with abandon, it was a lovely morning. The air was fresh, and the temperature wasn't so bad - I suspect it was somewhere in the low forties - which compared to the city recently was practically African savanna hot - with a promise of higher temperatures later in the day.

And I realized, as I turned east onto 47th Street, that regardless of the weather, the streets nearer the rivers (in this case the East River) become like wind tunnels, funneling the wind off the rivers straight at anyone walking toward them. So if it's sunny, it's glorious, but if it's raining or snowing (like this morning) it becomes a full frontal assault, the objective of which is to rip the bumbershoot from you hands and sent it spinning across Manhattan 'til it ends up in the Hudson.

Thankfully, by the time I'd turned into the wind tunnel, I'd snapped to long enough to realize how silly was my rage at the other pedestrians, and I got to focus on negotiating the wind tunnel, and taking a little delight in doing it well. There's something oddly satisfying about arriving under the sheltering overhang of One Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza and snapping an umbrella shut. The snap and twist of returning the umbrella to its dormant state is somehow like standing atop a pedestal and shouting, "Mission Accomplished!"

It's the little things, friends.

Speaking of umbrellas, I know that mine's not the smallest one in existence, but what the fuck's up with these golf umbrellas that are suddenly all over the place. I had to duck out of the way of one being wielded by this willowy blond today; it was as wide as she was tall, it seemed. And it was one of those two-tiered jobbies that allow the wind to blow through without snatching your umbrella out of your hands? All I could think was, "Jesus Christ, that's not an umbrella, that's a pavilion!"